Note: These are a series of brief observations on the Trinity, using as a resource James R. White’s book The Forgotten Trinity published by Bethany House.
As a Reformed scholar once wrote: “The Trinity is Forgotten!” Christians sing of all things, but rarely do they contemplate the Trinity. This is a curious point to ponder. We consider groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons to be outside the historic Christian faith and we withhold fellowship with them precisely because they deny the Triune God. Our call to worship is a call in the Name of the Father, Son, and Spirit. Our benediction is the blessing in the Name of the Father, Son, and Spirit. But Christians fail to understand that the Trinity is at the center of all redemptive history. In other words, you cannot know the Son apart from knowing the Father and the Spirit. “We must know, understand, and love the Trinity to be fully and completely Christian.”[1]
We all desire to be completely Christian. Gnostics reject this totality of the Christian faith. They desire to be fully spiritual and deny the flesh. This world is simply a hindrance to more important things. However, Christians desire to be fully engaged with the spiritual realities as well as engaged with the present world. The incarnation of Christ is the manifestation of God in the flesh. It is the greatest refutation of Gnosticism. God abandoned the glories of paradise to be with a sin-driven world full of corruption and death. But this is the richness of the Trinity. And the more we understand and know the Triune God—in eternity we will continue this great task—the more like Christ we will become. The more we know of the Trinity, the more we will know of true love.
[1] James R. White, The Forgotten Trinity (Minneapolis, MN, Bethany House, 1998) 15.
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